These Black Eyes

by P0ST

The ongoing adventures and experiences of the Teen Titans, as witnessed through the eyes of a silent newcomer.

64. Full Circle part 11 final

64. Full Circle part 11 Final

My left arm twitched.

There was a brief shot of pain running up from my forearm into my shoulder and then it was gone again.

I winced, shook it off, and slowly crept forward through the rain. The computer chip embedded in me was like a Ring returning to its Master. I knew then and there without a doubt that I was at the doorsteps to Dagger's 'house'.

I gripped hard to Myrkblade's hilt with my right hand. Rain plodded down my head, soaked my hair, and streamed down my face and over my black goggles. My tattered apprentice outfit of black and brown metal mesh glinted with the sheen of moisture.

Across from me and forming a solid line in the puddles of the street were Slade's henchmen. There were twelve to fifteen of them at that time and place. Clad in rain-soaked, absurdly formal suits of black, dark brown, and dark blue. A handful held uzzis aimed at me. Another handful had shotguns. Slowly, the line formed a crescent curved outward from my slowly advancing stride. Beyond their dark heads I saw through the glass entrance of the gothic skyscraper's first floor. Everything inside the foyer was clean and white and polished. Another throng of men in black was inside, standing over the blinding, ivory tile; either oblivious to the standoff outside or impervious to it.

I crept forward. My metal-laced boots plopped in tiny rivers of water cascading down the asphalt and into the City gutters. The air from the cold front was betrayingly frigid for the summer season. Steam rose gently from my nose as I exhaled into the curtains and curtains of rain. A thin surface of water constantly splashed over my black goggles at some point or another.

Everything was melting inside of me as I marched out across the concrete. Everything was oozing away into some cold, soft mass in the bottom of my being. Like lead that held my feet stiff and still and forced me to stop in my sudden tracks and gently black-eye the crescent of gun-toting bodies before me…..and gradually around me.

Black suits and taunt wet muscles and taunt wet metal of ghostly triggers and barrels and clips of ammo.

My black eyes narrowed, hidden and dark.

These were not thugs……these were not human beings……

I inhaled slowly.

They crept forward. Inching. Guns cocking. Waiting……

These were equations……equations in the antithesis of the Experiment……

My fingers flexed around Myrkblade.

My metal-laced bandanna danced against the impact of rain drops.

My empty throat swallowed.

And I………I was the Scientist………

SWOOOSH!!!!!

Everyone instantly jerked and twitched their fingers around their triggers as I swiftly raised Myrkblade above my shoulders and curved to the sky.

I again inched slowly towards them, twirling my head about to face each and every one. The raindrops splattered down onto the serrated edge of my wooden sword and sliced apart into a drizzling spray that baptized me with each step I took.

They started stepping back now. Some of them were trembling. Some of the equations were already cancelling themselves out.

And for once, I saw things as Jinx saw them. Or at least as how Jinx had the capability of seeing them, had she not clouded herself with the evil ideologies of wretched criminals.

Everything around me and inside of me were just puzzle pieces trying their damned best to fit together but always taking the longest route to find each other for some odd reason. Perhaps the Titans had already learned ahead of time that a straight-line is always the best direction to take towards a goal or foe. I was still a nooby, and after days of playing the wildcard and bluffing my confused self around the table, I was finally learning my lesson. I was finally realizing that—in this world—it is the hero that reigns supreme. The Balance of Morals assured that for me. The Messenger was right. I had manifested the Einstein approach to the continual dichotomy of Good versus Evil and now reality was curving in my favor under the flag of Virtue.

And virtue carries an obsidian sword to tear ass with.

SWOOOOOOSH!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

I rocketed towards the crescent of henchmen in a straight line. Myrkblade warbling. My eyes smoking.

Guns cocked, fingers pulled, and--

BLAM!!! BLAM!! BLAM!!!

RAT-A-TAT-TAT-TAT-TAT!!!!

The bullets were like the rain. I merely blurred to smoke and splashed straight through them.

I materialized with Myrkblade skewering a shotgun through the middle.

CRACK!!!

I swung it into a thug to my right. The gun exploded. Shot flew hot and mercilessly. Two men fell to the ground, their upper legs bleeding.

BLAM!! BLAM!!

Shots from behind me.

I leapt straight up, backflipped, and came down between two shotgunners.

Standing straight, I twirled Myrkblade clockwise in front of me. The tip sliced red canyons into the right and left shoulders of the thugs on my flanks. They fell down, screaming.

A half dozen remaining thugs gasped and fired at will.

BLAM!!! BANG!! BANG!!

I spun, twirled Myrkblade, and deflected every bullet, shot, and stream.

Two projectiles flew back through the ankles of two thugs. They fell down, leaking red.

I deflected another bullet with a crouching jab of my blade.

The object sailed up and bounced off the shades a man was wearing. The sunglasses split in two and the sheer concussion of the ricochet sent him plunging unconscious to the puddles beneath him.

I squatted there…panting. The rivers of rain-made puddles ran towards me and under me. Fresh crimson trails squirmed through the rivers. I saw the blood as the Tao. And that Tao was inside of me. And I didn't need to stress and I didn't need to worry. Just dance. Like a ballet. The rhythm of fate and destiny was settling down a pinball machine of celestial gravity and bouncing off the paddles of my heartbeat. It was always like that. I was just too preoccupied with the disillusions and detriments of being banished by the Titans to bother slipping a quarter in.

BANG!!!!!

PING!!! I deflected a shot from behind my back, twirled around, and blurred at two black-suited shadows. I leapt up and slammed the tip of my shoe into the Adam's apple of one thug and jabbed diagonally downward into the shoulder of another.

SLIIIINK!!!

"AAAUGH!!" he shouted.

I came down—his arm still skewered—and swung Myrkblade around and yanked away. A spray of crimson touched the air and was instantly shoved down by the curtain of rain as the man teetered off and plowed into two recovering thugs reaching for their weapons. They all collapsed to the puddles, bleeding and bruised, but not mortally wounded.

I twirled Myrkblade, swiveled around, and faced two last men with pistols. Their limbs shook. Their feet were unsteady. They hobbled backwards and fired round after round from their metal friends.

BANG!! BANG!! BANG!!

I marched slowly towards them. Every time a bullet flew at me, I blurred into smoke and let the projectile stream past me. Rain pattered off my head in intermittent gasps of liquid light. My goggles spewed murk out from under and---WOOOOOSH!!!

Water parted in mid-air as I teleported forward, kneed one thug in the stomach, thwacked the other in the head with my hilt, and slapped the legs out from under the first with the broadside of Myrkblade.

THWAP!!

SPLASH!!!

One man fell hard to the puddles below. The other man teetered.

I grabbed the latter, rushed towards the entrance, and slammed him hard against the hood of the limousine.

WHUMP!!!

Aluminum bounced and dented and the man was unconscious.

I hopped over the vehicle and under the concrete shadow of the building. My body steamed with smoke into the lessening rain as I came to the overhang.

The people inside the blindingly white foyer had seen me finally. They were busy scrambling to slide in the bolt locks of the fragile glass doors.

A grounded thug on the sidewalk stirred and stood up, painfully rubbing his head.

I blindly hoisted him up by the collar in mid march. He struggled in my grasp for a half second or two before I picked up the pace, stretched him in front of me, and charged the doors and the recoiling thugs inside with the man's sprawling body as a battering ram.

SMASH!!!!!!!!!!

Glass fountained into the foyer with rain water.

Two thugs met the body of the man as I leapt over them and into the line of fire of nearly twenty recruited thugs aiming at me. In mid-air, I looked ahead and saw a dark-haired man in front of the huge elevator doors at the end of the foyer and flanked by half a dozen thugs. He was twirling a knife in his fingers. He had on a stone face.

Dagger……

With that revelation streaking across my mind, the bulletfire rang into my ears as I fell and everything speeded up like a blender.

BANG!! BANG!! RAT-A-TAT-TAT-TAT!!!!

I fell with a spinning fan of Myrkblade in front of me.

CL-CL-CL-CL-CL-CLANK!!!!

Bullets deflected back in a conical fountain.

I landed in the sea of glass, side-flipped, and ran up a concrete pillar.

Bullets splashed behind my heels.

Plaster and stone flew in shattered shingles.

I vaulted off, teleported through a wall of shot, and landed in the center of a circle of six gun-toating thugs.

I spun on the ground with Myrkblade pointed outwards.

SWOOOOOSH-SL-SL-SL-SL-SLINK!!!!

All six thugs fell at once, simultaneously grabbing their bleeding ankles.

I rolled across the red-stained tile, came up to my knees, and raised Myrkblade with a blur that deflected two magnum rounds.

BLAM—CLANK!!!

BLAM—CONG!!

I dove forward, slid across the ground, and jumped up besides the man with the revolver.

He fired point blank at me.

BLAM!!!

I teleported behind him, spun once, and jabbed Myrkblade backwards.

CLANK!!

The tip skewered his revolver.

I twirled Myrkblade in front of me and slashed forward at two thugs rushing up with shotguns. The swing caused the revolver to fly off the tip of my sword, land awkwardly on the floor, and explode in a fury of silver shrapnel.

Blood splurted from the two shotgunners' legs as they fell hard to the ground.

I spun around, kicked the revolver man in the face, and backflipped across the foyer as another phalanx of black-suited men rushed up with uzzis and took aim.

RAT-A-TAT-TAT-TAT-TAT-TAT-TAT!!!

At the end of my flip, I slid across the ground. Bullets ricocheting in a stream behind my heels, I ran up a column, blurred my feet, ran up the ceiling, streaked upside down above the men, and tossed a fan of razor sharp playing cards from directly overhead. The last of my deck.

SWIIIIIISH—CH-CH-CHUNK!!!

Three uzzis bit the dust. Two men were still armed. They fired rapidly as I teleported from the ceiling to the floor, side flipped, dove forward, deflected their shorts, and charged at them.

I danced and twirled between the men, gracefully slashing off gun barrels, grazing shoulders with red streams, knocking feet out from under gasping torsos, and even slamming two heads together.

The long and short of it…the last gunmen were grounded in three and a half seconds flat.

I spun and glared at the elevator doors.

Dagger and his last half-dozen thugs stepped back towards the door. The henchmen formed a protective circle around them.

I charged.

They aimed. My feet smoked and blurred.

They fired.

BLAM!! BANG!!!

I deflected the bullets with ease.

I gritted my teeth.

The elevator doors opened.

Dagger slowly stepped back. Emotionless.

The thugs fired as one.

BLAM!! BLAM!! BLAM!!

I teleported through the wave of bullets.

I came at them.

One thug ran off, whimpering.

The wall flew at me.

Bodies with metal weapons.

Dagger's unblinking eyes.

Twirling knife.

BLAM!!

CLANK!!

I swung through a gun, shattering it to pieces.

The elevator doors were closing.

I jumped up, kicked my way through a thug's head, and streaked past the others grabbing for me in vain.

A thin slit of doorspace left.

White puffing into nonexistence in the corners of my goggles.

A twirl of Myrkblade, and dive, and stab, and---

SWOOOOSH!!!

I squeezed through the closing doors and slashed straight at Dagger's torso against the wall.

TH-THWIP!! He spun the knife and blurred his hand up.

CLANK!!

My blade stabbed up into the metal wall two inches above his head.

He glared and yanked forward.

SLIIIINK!!!

His knife grazed my right cheek.

I winced and stepped back. I planted my back against the elevator doors, twirled Myrkblade, and aimed it at him from across a scant span of half a meter and a half.

Dagger was poised into a perfect position. His thin and seemingly harmless body angled itself into a meditative stance. His left hand pointed his ornate knife straight out at me. Stone still. Not shaking in the least. His other hand bent fingers into a tranquil position. There was more strength in his flick of a tiny blade then there was in a nuclear warhead. I could sense it pouring out of his unblinking eyes. Cold and collected. Infinitely strong. Evil.

He was still.

I was still.

The flow of Fate paused as we regarded each other.

Black eyes on impervious eyes.

A soaking wet body and a dry granite figure.

The elevator hummed around us…dragging us gently upwards to some unknown tier in the gothic tower of industrial Evil.

Silence….

"How did I see this coming, Jordan?" Dagger throated. And I knew once and for all that he was the same voice as beyond the bright floodlamps of that meat packing plant. "Like your eyes, my mind is constantly wakened by the bright flares burning across this land we call 'Existence'. I saw your fire flickering in the night as you crawled into this City of mine. Like the prodigal son, you came back under my wings. It would be a completely accurate analogy…if only I was your father."

I panted…glaring at him. My black goggles formed hard lines into my skin. My fingers tightened around my weapon's hilt. Blood trickled down from the fresh knife cut on my right cheek.

"I honestly never believed them when they said you would be the epitome of the undertaking…," he said hauntingly. Glaring at every revealed and hidden corner of my face. "You were too passionate. Too strong in the things that you clung to. Not like the red eyes."

My lungs heaved. I looked past him and into a dark past I wanted nothing to taste of anymore. I remembered everything…I still do remember everything, even if I don't admit it.

But I didn't remember Dagger….not one bit.

But the things he remembered….

"The red eyes succumbed….," he spoke. "…and it was rather ironic that he was the one to crumble. He was so fiery in spirit. Lord knows, it was his element. But the flame was kindled in our direction. His fate was predictable. Not like yours, Jordan. Not the black eyes. The black eyes seems intent on making a future of his own. Most pathetic, I think. Most disrespectful as well."

I gritted my teeth and made to jab at him.

"Don't…," he spat. "You may not recognize me, Jordan, but I can sense every muscle in your face melting away as you realize that I know you. And in order for me to know you, I had to have been there. And I was there, Jordan. I was there through all the screaming and the bleeding and the infinite blinding light. And that means I'm twice as dangerous as you'll ever be. So stand back, boy. You are no longer in your element."

I didn't believe a word he said. But I remained still, regardless. With Myrkblade aimed at him.

It wasn't my time to strike yet….it wasn't my time….

"If only you could tell me what it is that gives you the guile you have, Jordan….," he glared. "That foolish perseverance that makes you crawl back to your past while avoiding it all the same. Slade was right. Things are coming full circle. But not for him. No…not for him and his foolish dreams of supernatural dominance. Full Circle is the fate that you and I share. And I know where my part is in the play of destiny. But where is yours? Or do you even have a 'yours'? Rather…I'm inclined to think that where red eyes fell in and black eyes fell off….white eyes fell through."

My lips parted.

A chill ran through my body.

"White eyes….," Dagger breathed. "She's behind this, isn't she? It all makes sense, somehow. By yourself, you couldn't possibly have made it back to my threshold. White eyes has to be a part of it. Ana must be inside of you, Jordan. And it's only fitting…after the day she—"

SWOOOOSH!!!

I jabbed Myrkblade straight at him with a silent scream.

He ducked, knocked my sword away with a massive swing of his knife.

CLANK!!

He kicked me back in the lower body.

WHUMP!!

I fell against the doors, wincing.

"I can see you are still obstinate," he sneered. He reached into his pocket with a free hand. "It may be fated for you to hunt me down, but fate itself is no more than a commodity in this day and age." That said, he whipped out a glass vial that glowed in a pink light. "And I am chock full of wealth as we speak…"

My brow furrowed. My eyes squinted as I stared at the tiny container. The hue and glow of the color seemed so…..familiar….

Dagger frowned at me. His knife held at ready in one hand, he twirled the pink vial with the other and tossed it straight at the elevator floor.

CRACK!!!!

The vial shattered between his feet. Instantly, the glass flew apart and the pink glow drifted upwards like colorful steam. It 'absorbed' itself into Dagger's legs, abdomen, torso, arms, neck, and face. He held his arms out like a crucifix, flexed his muscles, and took a deep breath. At the end of his inhalation, his entire body momentarily shined in what appeared to be a pink aura. His eyes were softer than before…but still just as emotionless.

I blinked.

He narrowed his gaze on me. "Let's give those black eyes of yours a run-through, shall we Jordan?"

SWOOOOSH!!!

He blurred at me.

I could barely gasp--

WHAM!!!!!

The elevator doors behind me shattered as Dagger's glowing body plowed into me and shoved me onto a cold, metal floor of the twentieth story.

I slid across an aluminum gantry, hopped up, and twirled Myrkblade at ready.

My black eyes widened.

With inhuman speed, Dagger rushed around me, grabbed my left shoulder, and effortlessly flung me through a glass window overlooking the dark hallway we were in.

SMASH!!!

I fell a good story and landed on a catwalk in a giant interior full of noise.

I reached a blind hand up, grabbed ahold of a railing, and pulled myself to my feet. I winced all over. Glass fell off my shoulders and to the floor beneath my boots. I gripped loosely to Myrkblade as I ached.

Since when could Dagger move like that??

He was only human just seconds ago!!

I blinked.

Where was I??

I looked around. Stories seventeen through nineteen of Dagger's building were not solid office floors as one would expect from looking at the outside of the structure. Before me stretched a huge processing plant of sorts, built high up into the shell of the skyscraper. Steam hissed and machinery parts cranked all around me. I saw conveyor belts, robot arms, moving platforms, pulley systems, rattling chains, and all sorts of fancy devices constructed for the mass packaging of a mysterious material. And that mysterious material turned out to be hundreds upon hundreds of little glass vials of pink, glowing light. Robot arms with slots for the glass cases whirred and shook their rattling ways across the indoor factory and towards containers of hard-plastic and metal braces. Before my black eyes, a shipment was being prepared. All of the glowing pink before me was about to be shipped off to unknown and frightening places. It was like nothing I'd ever seen before…

"I do owe Slade one thing…."

I spun and held Myrkblade ready as Dagger dropped effortlessly down from the smashed window and slowly stepped towards me. He hadn't even broken a sweat.

"…his sorceress was most gracious in providing me with these wares." He glowed pink as he gestured towards the handfuls of lit vials moving all around him and us on the catwalk. "Pure Hex is what it is, Jordan. The key to bending fate in a bottle. Just one average man like me—weighing less than one hundred and eighty pounds—can move mountains…." CLANK!!!! He casually kicked a wrought-iron catwalk railing out of place. "…can cheat time…." WOOOOOSH!!! He was suddenly behind me by ten feet. "…and can play with destiny." He jumped up, flipped, and literally perched upside down on a metal bulkhead above as I watched him. "I grew up in the streets, Jordan. I knew what it meant to not know what the future was going to be. I knew what it meant to be clueless as to the whims of tomorrow." He dropped down, flipped upright in the blink of an eye, and landed right in front of me. He advanced as I stepped backwards from him with my sword. "And yet I persisted. I tempted fate. I fought for that which is at most odds impossible for me to grasp: plentiful life. Now that I have reached this apex…this height in the same underworld that once suckled me from the mire of urban sprawl…I think it is more than fitting that I decide how fate should operate from hereon out." He twirled his knife and pointed at me with glaring eyes as he glowed pink once again. "Imagine to yourself, Jordan, a criminal society impervious to bullets! An evasive opponent to death! An eternal rogue from the reaches of law! Slade can have his empty part of the bargain…for what I have acquired here is nothing short of invincibility itself!! The effects of these pitifully small vials may be temporary and impractical…but once my team of experts whom I stole from Anderson find the right pieces to the puzzle, my men and I can reproduce the hex on our own. And the world will have no choice but to bow down to me and my will. The implications of this are incomprehensible. You should know, Jordan. You've faced against this inevitability before, haven't you?"

I took a deep breath.

I had.

In Phaser Labs.

The ungodly assassins who shot every bullet a hit and swung every punch an impact.

They looked and moved like Jinx for a reason. Dagger had manage to get the Cat's tongue for once.

"Imagine this whole City full of that. Then the whole region. This is a happy July Fourth indeed, Jordan. In a matter of weeks…there will be a new definition to this Nation. Though, to be honest—I'll set up nothing more than pure anarchy once I have gained enough power…"

I growled and swung Myrkblade at him.

He lifted his hand.

CLANK!!!

His wrist blocked my smoking, serrated blade.

My jaw fell.

His eyes narrowed.

He spun around and extended two hands of glowing pink.

The air suddenly thundered between us and I was sent flying back.

WHUMP!!!

He twirled his knife, dashed forward, and slashed downward with the seemingly flimsy blade.

I rolled backwards.

SMASH!!!!!!

An entire section of the catwalk cracked and fell out from the impact.

I jumped up.

Dagger came at me.

I held my breath and teleported right as he blurred through me with blue pink.

I solidified across the room full of moving parts and rattling machinery and vials.

I panted.

"You move fast, black eyes…," a voice said directly behind me.

I gasped and spun around.

Dagger glared. "But I move faster." WHAM!!!!! He punched me in the stomach with a single fist.

Regardless, I was sent flying back ten feet, striking hard against a metal bulkhead, and falling down hard onto the conveyor belt.

WHUMP!!!!

I winced. Packages of pink vials bobbed alongside me.

Thump!!!

Dagger landed on the moving platform, standing before me with hands on his hips.

"Come now…where's the fervor of red eyes? The resilience of white eyes? Have you truly forgotten about them, Jordan?"

I looked up and glared at him through my goggles. I never forget anything……

He blurred down, gripped me by the scarred throat, and lifted me high into the air as we both rattled along. I struggled and gasped and dangled in his grip…even though I was much taller and more physically fit than he was. Dagger had the pink hex empowering him. He didn't let up on me one bit.

"

You were so….so much more complete alongside the two of them…," Dagger reminisced. "After all, that's what the three of you were trained to do, right? Complement each other? At least that's what I was told when I extended my services. But now as I look at you, I know that you needed those two as much as they needed you. And without them…you're nothing but a chaotic shell. That's all you are, Jordan. A ghost of violence. Your only purpose in life is to fight. To attack. To pillage. You have nothing else to think about…and nothing else to say. It is no simple irony that you are mute. For you are hardly even half of a human being without them on your side like the old days!!"

He let go of me with a toss and I fell hard to the conveyor belt again…wheezing for breath.

"The Titans….they are a poor substitute," he murmured, clenching pink-glowing fists. "Perhaps it will do you good now that they may indeed be perishing in the hands of Slade. You'll learn that—from one experiment to another—you were strung between two torturous events and meant only for exercising the power donated to you in becoming black eyes. Your life has now come full circle. But I see that you're learning absolutely nothing. It was my job…the task appointed me to give you the ultimate test. Now, black eyes, let's see if indeed you fail!!!" He kicked me hard in the side.

WHUMP!!!!

I went flying off the conveyor belt and straight into a stack of plastic and metal cases.

CRASH!!!!!

Packages splashed all around me and thundered to the cold, metal floor along with my ragdoll body. I winced and flinched in pain. I looked around me and gasped. One of the packages had spilled open, and I was surrounded by glass vials of Jinx's hex…rattling to a stand still. I gulped. I looked up. I looked back at the vials again.

A beat….

THRUMP!!!!!

The packages around me were kicked loose of the fresh mountain of debris as Dagger rummaged through with pink limbs in search of me. He squinted his unblinking eyes at the spot where I was and twirled his dagger.

I was gone.

Invisible.

Stealth mode……

He obviously knew it.

He inhaled, looked up, and spoke firmly to the thin air: "Always one to disappear. Like a true ghost." He twirled his blade to a stop and the knife's metal glowed a bright pink. "But there's nowhere left to hide, Jordan. Once things are full circle, there's no extra perimeter to cling to. You're as good as found….and as good as mine."

With that said, he flicked the knife straight into the air.

The pink glow increased. The metal glinted with lavender. The blade literally curved in mid-flight, arched downwards, twitched around a robot arm, flew past a conveyor belt, and spun right as---

SLIIIIIINK!!!!

My body solidified momentarily as I grunted and clutched a bleeding shoulder where the blade had grazed me. The knife fell hard to the floor…stained crimson.

CLANK!!

Dagger clenched his fists. "Out of the woodwork…." He held his breath and blurred at the leaking red in mid-air.

WHAM!!!!

His knee struck me first. I lost my stealth as I stumbled back…gasping and bleeding.

Dagger spun and---with frightening acrobatics---lifted a swinging foot up and across my face.

SMACK!!

I teetered back towards a tall stretch of gothic windows overlooking a rainswept balcony. White lightning flickered outside in the wet weather, briefly shining off the pink vials and clanking machinery inside the skyscraper. Thunder rolled above the rumble of the factory as Dagger advanced harder and harder, dealing blow after blow on my aching figure with unabashed disregard for the rules of fate and happenstance.

WHAM!! SMACK!!! THWACK!! WHUMP!!

Pink glowed against my chest from each impact of his strikes.

I fell dizzily backwards, clinging desperately to Myrkblade. My lips bled. My hair hung in tangled knots around my bruised face. I panted and wheezed.

Dagger's eyes narrowed. "Obstinate….so horribly obstinate…."

He jumped up, twirled, and sidekicked me square across the face.

SMACK!!!!

I was sent spiraling backwards and through the gothic windows.

SMASH!!!!!!!!!!

Shards flew and tall cracks swam up the tall stretch of glass. I stumbled awkwardly across the balcony of stone where rain drenched and flowed in rivers past my sprawling figure and directly over the edge of an arrangement of stiff gargoyles overlooking a seventeen-story-drop to the black river of asphalt far below.

I lay on the ground….gasping. Dagger's last kick had completely shattered my goggles apart. The leather strap holding them in place littered to the ground, and my naked black eyes were exposed permanently to the unforgiving night. Lightning flashed and burned my optics instantly. Tears of pain merged with the rain streaming down my forehead.

Dagger slowly marched out onto the stone outcropping of the ghothic scraper's surface. His dry, ornate self remained impervious to the rain, for a pink glow deflected all dropping moisture away from his head and shoulders as he leered over me….breathing steadily.

"You disappoint me, Jordan. But I suppose you could have predicted such. Regardless, my verdict is not the final one in your case. You know as well as I do who I answer to. It's the same one responsible for the glory you could have begun. But this test proves him wrong. And I feel almost regretful for ever lending a hand to the procedure that brought meaning to the three sets of eyes. But there is one last step for this test. And I am most eager to see the results…"

He took a deep breath…and kicked me hard in the side.

WHUMP!!

I went splashing across the balcony and sailed over the side.

I gasped, reached up, and stabbed Myrkblade hard into the neck of a gargoyle. I dangled from my hold of Myrkblade, which was stuck halfway into the stoned monster. Rainwater vomited out of its granite mouth and littered down me…plummeting seventeen long stories to the hard asphalt looming far below.

Lightning flashed, burning me inside out. I gritted my teeth and squinted my black eyes up.

Thunder rolled and Dagger appeared. He stood over me. He sighed.

"And so it is….," he mumbled. "You are defeated. I suppose it is time I did my part and suggest the procedure choose a new pair of eyes to empower. As far as I'm concerned…my efforts have been just as fruitless as Slade. He failed to reinvent the universe…I failed to reinvent you. But you know what they say about the best laid plans….they come full circle into oblivion. And you, Jordan, are the epitome of such oblivion."

I took a deep breath….dangling…straining…staring up at him.

His eyes narrowed and he nodded his head down at me through the shower of nonstop rain drops and strobe of lightning. "Learn to embrace the end, Jordan. All your life…you've been avoiding it."

I frowned.

So freakin' sue me……

I reached into my belt pocket with a free hand.

Dagger's eyebrows raised.

I pulled out a glass vial of pink hex I had snatched up from the factory floor.

Dagger's lips parted.

YANK!!!!!

I pulled on Myrkblade….and fell.

Dagger's body turned into a speck that sailed up at me on the balcony's edge.

And I fell with the rain like a wet bag of discarded meat.

Lightning flashed as I spun my body around and faced the biting wind. My hair whipped behind me and my black eyes narrowed against the stinging air.

The asphalt soared up at me.

I took a deep breath.

I flung the vial straight down. It flew a few feet of falling ahead of me.

I twirled Myrkblade…and slashed downward.

SWOOOOOSH-CLANK!!!!

The vial shattered. Glass flew past my face, some chards cutting at the sides of my skull. I gritted my teeth and absorbed the glow of pink hex contained within. A strong glow of warmth and fluidity merged with the smoke in my bloodstream. As the street came rocketing towards my bright vision, I felt the currents of reality shift and morph in my favor. God came to earth in my empty throat as I took a deep breath, stretched Myrkblade straight down towards the urban sprawl, and willed for the impossible to happen.

And it did…in the form of a petroleum semi truck suddenly hitting a brand new sinkhole in the asphalt and fishtailing across the myriad of puddles. The driver inside scrambled in vain to take control of the vehicle as the truck glowed a dim pink and fishtailed through the slick street before slamming into a telephone pole. The pole snapped and the tank of the semi truck trailer cracked open…leaking petroleum. Power lines flew in the rain and dangled above the leaking spot of fuel. At the last second, the driver bailed out of his seat and ran clear across the street as the dangling cords sparked once…twice…and---

BOOOOOOOM!!!!!!!!!!!!

In perfect, coordinated coincidence…an enormous fireball flew up at me and stabbed deep into my black eyes with unbearable blindness. My face was on fire….and I smiled. I smiled a Cheshire cat grin. I twirled like a ballet dancer in mid air, the tips of my fingers glowing around Myrkblade. I spiraled through the rain, blurred my feet, encased my body in solid smoke, and absorbed the vertical plume of erupting plasma.

PHWOOOOOOOOOOMB!!!!!!!

A mushroom cloud of fire shot up both buildingsides bordering the four-lane-space of the street. The air heated up and shook with grenade-like-concussions as the flame danced up and shattered every single pane of glass and window stretching up for about fifteen feet while I cannonballed towards the rain-soaked and lightning filled sky without regard for fate, death, or the nameless 'other' beyond.

ROAAAAAAAAAAARR!!!!!

Before long, Dagger's stone face flew straight down at my vision and shattered into pebbles of shock and disbelief.

I gritted my smiling teeth, slashed Myrkblade upwards, and struck heavenly hard with the wooden sword across the full length of the crimelord's chest.

SLASSSSSSSSSSSHHHH!!!!

Dagger's shirt ripped to shreds. A thick red line formed diagonally up his chest as he teetered back.

I was already flipping and coming back down in a pink streak.

SMACK!!!!

I struck his arm down with Myrkblade, spun around, and jabbed straight into his stomach.

THWUMP!!!

He fell back a full fifteen feet and tumbled across the wet balcony.

I twirled the blade, danced in twirls and spins across the way, and effortlessly swung again. His arm just happened to be there.

SLIIIINK!!!

Blood flew from his skin as I grazed it. I was a god then. If I wanted to beat Dagger's ass without killing him, then I beat Dagger's ass without killing him. The pink aura glowed as I continued with my punishment, jabbing and slashing and swinging my sword.

Blood flew from Dagger's sensitive skin in eleven different places. He stumbled, teetered, wobbled, and careened all around as my strikes mercilessly assaulted him with the quickness of the lightning, the relentlessness of the rain, and the fury of the thunder.

At one point, his wheezing—bleeding—body fell back against a pillar of stone set in the gothic front of the building face. He gasped…struggling for breath and yet somehow keeping his emotions in check, save for a awkward slice of desperation: "Y-You have passed the test, Jordan. A-Allow me to live and I c-c-can help you!!"

I gritted my teeth and slashed again.

He tried ducking, but I only shred a cut in the back of his billowing, soaked shirt. Blood leaked down his back as he stumbled backwards, spun around, and hobbled backwards away from my advancing figure.

"Y-Your past….Jordan…," he wheezed, "….I-I can explain everything….I can t-tell you all the truths they told me….I-I can fill in the gaps for y-you…."

My black eyes glared, reflecting pink hex and white lightning.

I'm happy with my gaps…thank you very much!!

SLASH!!!!

Dagger's shirt came loose and hung on him by one sleeve alone as his soaked, bare skin bore a dozen deep cuts and scratches. He stumbled closer and closer—and dizzier and dizzier—towards the rainsoaked edge of the balcony.

"I can….I c-c-can even help you…," he wheezed, "….f-find her again…..Jordan…."

I came to a stop.

I froze with Myrkblade in mid-swing.

My lips quivered.

The pink aura started to fade.

Dagger leaned haphazardly on the edge of the balcony. Rain mixed with red rivers coming down his torso. His stone face melted into pure pain and exhausted as he panted and emphasized:

"Ana……white eyes…..I-I can help you two….r-r-reunite…."

My heart turned cold. I gritted my teeth.

Liar………

Smoke billowed out from my eyes and blade.

Filthy……unforgivable……LIAR!!!

I charged straight at him with a silent scream and a swing of my sword. The smoke exploded back into a bright pink fury.

I know very well what happened to Ana………

SLASH!!!!!!!

Dagger literally twirled from my last cut. He teetered at the edge, groaned, and fell over.

"!!!!" I dove forward…slid over the last length of rain-soaked balcony….and slung my left hand out and over the edge.

CLUTCH!!!!!

I grabbed ahold of a handful of shirt. I strained and gritted my teeth as Dagger dangled far over the edge below me. His right arm was slung awkwardly through the last bit of sleeve stuck around his skin. Mere cloth. It lurched, stretched, and strained from the weight of the man hanging far below my grasp of the other end. Dagger's body spun slightly as he dangled. Limp legs over a dark abyss of shadowed alleyway below. He looked up—cut and lifeless—as lighting flashed and illuminated the corners of his crumbled face. The pink aura faded for good from his body. The temporary effects of his smashed vial of hex died out like he said it would. He was now as endangered by the altitude and weather elements as any normal human on any normal occasion.

I panted down at him…rain streaking down from my matted hair and off my chin and over his eyes.

He finally blinked at me. He spoke with a haunting air of sadness as he said: "You are far more alone than even I thought, Jordan…."

I panted.

My lips hung open.

Hidden from my black eyes, Dagger reached a free hand to his tattered slacks pocket and fingered the hilt of a concealed, ornate knife.

"But perhaps not for long….," he whispered. "For you still have Titans to save."

I blinked.

His eyes narrowed. "Twenty miles east…in the waters of the Atlantic…Slade has your companions held hostage in his frigate. If he hasn't already, he intends to either brainwash or kill them. Perhaps even both. The Experiment Slade's been in love with all this time is now in effect. Surely, you have felt it."

I breathed heavily.

My left hand ached and strained as I struggled to hold the man up by the flimsy shirt.

He slowly slid the knife out of his pocket…but not all the way.

"If you wish to attempt saving your friends, you may do so…black eyes," he spoke solemnly. "But that chip in your left arm—the very same one I put in there—will stop you."

My eyes widened.

"Slade has with him a remote. As soon as you're in the same room as him, he will press the trigger and release deadly toxins into your body. And you will die, Jordan. You will have no time to save your friends. You'll perish at Slade's hands before you even have a chance to look at your tortured companions…."

My lips quivered in the rain.

Dagger took a deep breath. The last breath he would ever take. "Alas, such is the consequence of fate. It clips us of our wings…and sends our dust settling back into the heartless streets."

SWOOOOSH!!! He swung his blade up….and severed the sleeve around his arm.

RIIIIIIP!!!

I gasped and reached down for him…but it was too late.

The stoical despot fell with the rain down the seventeen stories below. I watched as his body was swallowed up in the darkness of the alleyway below. And everything but the thunder echoed silence.

The bloody, tattered shirt flapped at the end of my grasp like a dirty flag. I slowly stood up…Myrkblade hanging by my side. I took a deep breath.

Something beeped behind me.

"???"

I turned around.

I looked in through the smashed windows at the factory full of transported vials. The machinery were blinking with red lights.

I gasped.

Dagger was dead.

And he had a failsafe---

I spun around, ran towards the edge of the balcony, and leapt with the last charge of pink hex I had left.

BEEP!!!—BOOOOOOOOOM!!!!

The three floors of packaging materials exploded brightly behind me.

I flew across the space between buildings, perched on a window on the opposite side, and blurred up to the rain-soaked rooftops as the fireball erupted and shot debris all around me from where I had leapt.

I stood up on the next building's spire, silhouetted by a sky strobing with lightning and raindrops reflecting the fire of both the smoking petroleum truck below and the erupting building of Dagger's fallen empire. In the distance beneath the rumble of thunder, the sounds of sirens erupted and wailed this way.

Fate had gone up in flames. I couldn't care less.

I looked off towards the East, my hair flapping wet and loose in the wind and rain.

I had to save my friends…but how??

I looked at the flapping shirt, still hung around my left arm. The arm with the damnable chip. The chip that would kill me in a matter of hours when I inevitably went to save the Titans.

And yet…I would never save the Titans. I wouldn't be able to get close to them.

Dagger didn't really need to warn me about the chip. I had greatly suspected that it was my death card. It was the sort of thing a despot like him or Slade would use. In fact, I was rather surprised I survived as long as I did against him on the soaked balcony. But none of that mattered now.

Slade…..I had to face Slade. I didn't want to and yet I did want to all the same.

My mind reeling, I blurred down the buildingside and away from the amber glow of destruction before the cops and paramedics and firefighters came to embrace the desolation….

-T-T-T-T-T-T-

Panting.

Sweating.

Lungs stinging with pain.

Robin slowly stood up. Curtains of moisture swam their way down his cheeks from under his eyemasks. Gradually, as he woke up to the topmost layer of consciousness, he realized that he was still there. All five of them were still there. It was not a dream, and yet it was a nightmare. A real nightmare.

The other Titans…Cyborg, Raven, Beast Boy, and Starfire…they moaned and stirred in their chairs.

Robin couldn't tell whether or not Slade had lowered the level of torture the nanoprobes were releasing into the heroes' bloodstreams. The level of pain did seem strangely lower. Now it only felt like a carving knife against the curves of Robin's intestines. But the more he thought about the situation…the more he thought about Slade…the more he wished to get free, and that very thought triggered the electromagnetic sensors of the computerized chair he was sitting in and moved the metaphysical 'carving knife' to his lungs.

"AAAUGH!!!" he suddenly yelped and shook in pain from the hellish punishment.

A girlish finger tickled the tip of his sweat-covered chin.

Robin gasped and looked through hazy eyes at the pink figure of a sorceress leaning in front of him.

"Awwwww….poor thing," Jinx cooed. "Does it hurt? Oh wait…yes it does!!! Hehehehe!!"

Robin swallowed hard. He wheezed dryly: "Y-You…."

"I've seen you in a better light, Bird Boy…," Jinx remarked softly. "But my-oh-my how the layers of suave vigilante image have crumbled. All you are underneath is this. The squealing Mama's boy who gives in under pain. Ya know, the only reason you and your fellow Titans are alive right now is that you're not resisting. And in a way…that means a victory for my side."

"Where is Slade?" Robin growled, immediately feeling the equivalent of pins being stabbed in his eyes. He gasped and shook.

"Temper temper…," she smiled. "I'm keeping watch while my Master tends to navigational issues," she gestured out the circular window a the darklit waves. "He trusts me to keep your powers at bay with my hex so that you last through the Experiment. After all, it's only the first day!"

"'M-Master'???" Robin wheezed. "You are….," he eyed her black and brown outfit. "….h-his apprentice…."

Jinx winked her cat eye. "In the flesh." She jumped back, twirled like a dancer, and stood with a girlish lean as she spoke: "While you and your friends were bashing your precious Noir, I was secretly hopping around and making things a royal headache for you!! Thought things were too coincidental for there to be ambushes at the end of every Slade-lead? Or felt that Noir kicked so much ass while the rest of you Titans collapsed under chaotic circumstance? Well…you're looking at the hand of fate! The manifestation of misfortune! The ever-present Jinx in your life that makes you fall over yourself and collapse into egotistical oblivion!!"

Suddenly, Cyborg wheezed—coming to in a painful moan: "Robin…who's this chatterbox?? Not even Slade talks his damn mouth off like this—AAAUGH!!" He winced as the impression of a hundred invisible knives flying through his chest racked through his body from the nanoprobes and he sweated bullets.

"Keep yourself under control Cyborg…," Robin gasped. He swallowed hard and managed to speak: "W-We gotta think of something…we gotta last…."

"We ain't joining Slade's side…," Cyborg whimpered, his human eye closed tightly. "W-We can't!!"

"Y-Yeah…," Beast Boy's voice suddenly entered the air with a sigh. "L-Let's just get it over with….altogether??"

"Hang in there….p-please….," Robin shuddered. "E-Everyone…"

"I am…..finding it….most difficult…to remain virtuous….," Starfire whimpered. Green tears leaked from her eyes as she shook in her seat. "The joy…is fading with…each release….of my resolve….."

"You're doing great….j-just hang in there….w-we'll think of something…"

"Oh really???" Jinx grinned, her hands on her grip as a Cheshire cat grin floated across the space towards the Boy Wonder. "And just what do you expect to do? You can't get out of those damn seats!! The more you think about escaping from Slade or hurting him, the nanoprobes torture you all the more until you flat-out die!!! How could you possibly formulate a plan under such circumstances?!?!"

"What's in it for you??" Beast Boy spat, wincing from the nanoprobes' reaction to his outburst. "I-I thought you were on your own, Jinx!! I thought you were gone from H.I.V.E. and people like Slade---an-and lookin' for your sisters and c-crap!!"

"They're as good as found now, thank you," Jinx smiled softly. "Master will make sure of that."

"He'll make sure of nothing!!" Cyborg retorted. He winced in a sudden wave of pain. He bore it through, panted, and spoke on: "Every time…Slade has made an apprentice…he's double-crossed him or her. It'll happen to you. J-J-Just you wait and see!!"

"I'll wait for you to wish that I could see…up until you're either dead or a vegetable zombie serving the Master," Jinx paced across the tortured five and sneered. "I know what my goals are. And unlike you fools, I know where the answer to my questions lie."

Clip!

She pulled out her locket and opened it…staring at the photo of Fate and Fortune. She sighed happily.

"At the end of this rough road…my beloved sisters will be waiting for me. Slade and I shall free them from whatever hideous institution is still housing them. Be it H.I.V.E., be it Lexcorp, be it anything or anyone. After all these long years of separation…I shall finally be reunited with the ones I love."

Flip!

Snap!

She closed the locket and slid it back down the front of her black and brown costume.

"But what do you creeps know about the 'ones you love'? You throw caution to the wind and focus on nothing but your grimy selves!!"

"We're nothing like you…," Robin said, wincing. "W-We don't endanger innocent lives and torture heroes with disregard!!"

"Oh ho ho ho ho now!!!! Listen to yourself!!" Jinx flipped over and landed agilely in front of Robin, smirking. "Name me one soul…one tiny little soul in this world that you've senselessly beat, Boy Wonder. That you and your 'friends' here have dashed against the rocks of respect and decency out of fear for your own pathetic hides!! Name him!!"

Robin strained, sweating. Grunting.

"Name him!!!!!"

"Noir…..," wheezed a voice.

Jinx looked over at Raven.

The dark girl had been meditating the whole time to relinquish the pain and gather her thoughts. But overhearing the conversation, she broke off the concentration and sacrificed her comfort in place for the exquisite pool of torture as she frowned in Jinx's direction and spoke: "Is that what you're here for? To t-teach us about what we've done to Noir? We know the truth now. He w-was never working for Slade. But now it is t-t-too late to make a difference about that…"

The other Titans couldn't frankly tell if Raven was speaking on their behalf or Jinx's. They shrugged it off in favor of fighting the waves of torture settling through their systems from the relentless nanoprobes.

Jinx blinked. She smiled. "Such….white…pure…innocent…Titans. How hard it must be to wake up to what you've done. I think it's not so bad myself. I've betrayed my close friends before. And I'm proud of it. I could care less what happens to Gizmo or Mammoth these days. Hell, I'd be happy to see them die. Sooner than naught…even you five will see things my way. It's so easy to destroy trust. So easy to take it in your hand and rip it apart. Best to live that way, to be honest. I think the nanoprobes inside of you agree, right?? Hehehehehe!!"

"We…will not…," Robin grunted, straining as each firm word he said sent a wave of pain through his resisting body. "….w-will not give in….to a shift in…th-the Balance of Morals!!"

Starfire joined in: "W-We are not like you!!" She teared more as fresh pain wracked through her. "We will not join your w-wretched side!"

Jinx leaned forward, grinning wide. "EVERYONE IS IMMORAL!!!" Her cackling voice echoed throughout the dark cabin of the frigate. "Don't you get it?!?! Everyone….EVERYONE is immoral!! There is no Balance of Morals or whatcrap going on here!! My Master can believe what he wants and get what he wants, as long as he helps me find my sisters in the end!! I frankly don't care if you're becoming the most brainwashed of homicidal villains ever to walk this earth…but you all were never pretty to begin with!! You're only fooling yourself to think you kicked Noir out and treated him like poop out of pure ignorance!! You chose to oust him because of your own, selfish vulnerabilities!! And you know what?? I enjoyed humiliating him!! I enjoyed it everytime I brought him pain and made him hurt! Cuz it was all just a cleanup job from what YOU had done!! Hehehehehehehehe!! Isn't it just hilarious?!?!"

The Titans winced and strained. Their sweat and tears mixed together in chaotic fashion. It was hardly humbling. Hardly glorious. The Experiment was in full bloom…and they were being stripped of everything redeemable. Nothing normal in the least.

Raven gritted her teeth as she shot her voice through a thick wall of pain: "We m-may have given up on Noir…but I am convinced he has not given up on us. He will devise a w-way to come save us and when he does—"

"He will die….," Jinx finished with a grin.

Raven's twitching eyes widened.

The other Titans gasped.

"How….H-How???"

"Because of this……," Slade said, holding up the trigger and walking into the cabin once again. "I am quite sure the lot of you are familiar with the computer chip in Noir's left arm, courtesy of Dagger. The first moment your ostracized member comes within arm's length of me…and he dies. One click of the button, and his foolish bravery will swallow him up in a much more ravenous jaws of death than that which is consuming you now." He pocketed the trigger away, walked up, and gently patted the pink head of a blushing Jinx as he continued: "But such is the way things must be. As I stand here and speak to you—I can hardly believe that the Experiment is going on unhitched as it is. But reality for once is singing in my favor. And I am most in tune to the octaves in the throat of fate. It is a lovely siren song Destiny sings. I shall never, ever wander back after hearing it. And I'm taking you five with me. Beyond the Balance of Morals and into a new universe judged by despondency and not deliverance. It will be a grand tragedy indeed. I couldn't have written it better on my own if even I tried."

"Say Slade….," Robin gritted, struggling with his nanoprobes' torture. "While you're busy gloating over our weeping and gnashing of t-teeth….when're you gonna tend to Jinx and her sisters?? If y-you can twist the heart of f-fate around and listen to the song of D-Destiny…then surely you can find her m-missing siblings in a heartbeat!!" Technically, he was speaking in favor of Slade's apprentice…so the nanoprobes did not punish him for his bravery.

However, as Slade listened—and he witnessed the sudden look of doubt and anxiety on the pink sorceress' face—he frowned at Robin and whipped out another remote.

"New rule, Titans. You only speak when either I ask you to….or when you're not busy screaming……"

-click-

The Titans wailed as a wave of fire swiftly surged their bodies.

Bolts of electricity danced between their limbs and the chairs they were writhing up against.

Jinx watched silently…but as she saw the blue bolts of electricity…something in the faded past of her pink, cat eyes twitched and she absent-mindedly bit her lip…

-T-T-T-T-T-T-

Rain filtered down a dark alleyway beyond the sirens and fires of the blast sight as I hobbled to a stop, shivering. I had wrapped Dagger's shirt around me to warm my soaked body as the raining night drenched on.

I stopped because I realized that I had been walking in circles. I had been wasting time. I had been running away inside my head like I had done across country so much within the last four years.

With a shuddering breath, I slumped down with my bruised and aching back against a brick, alley wall.

I sunk into the abyss and let the darkness swallow me up through my naked black eyes.

I hugged my left arm to my chest like a long lost puppy. The skin there throbbed and tingled. It was like I was suddenly twice aware of my flesh now that the implications of the chip were made known to me.

I took a shuddering breath and shivered with the loose, blood-stained shirt flapping against me from the downdraft rushing through the thin alleyway.

I knew where Slade was now.

I knew where the Titans were.

Any second now…they could be killed. Executed. Transformed into brainless hulks of meat. Done in by the Experiment and the Full Circle of tragedy, as bent by the fate-ravaging ideals of Jinx and Slade.

I knew that only I and I alone had the speed and dexterity necessary to blur a path to Slade's boat and perform a rescue.

But even then…it would be hopeless.

The chip….the blasted invader of my being…it would end me. It would end me before I had a chance to even grab the Titans and hoist them out of their imprisonment.

Slade was the end of my life. With his all-seeing, emblazoned eye and his featureless voice drifting through my mind and chilling me to the cord.

It was no use.

I should have just headed back West.

I should have just walked away from this whole situation.

So what if the Experiment caused the entire fabric of the universe to screw itself in? What if this reality's weight of Morals changed forever because of one single tragedy and its repercussions?

I'd seen plenty of tragedy in my life. Plenty of dying breaths and spilt blood. The world hadn't changed any since the first day I ever screamed. The only thing that changed was me.

But…in everything coming full circle…would I just revert to my former ghost of a self? Would I just walk back West and into oblivion?

Oblivion was where Dagger was. He was an empty shell of a dictator, and he knew what was coming to him when it kissed him in the face.

I had no idea what would come to me if I gave in to my cowardice. But I knew what would happen if I did what I should have done. The only thing I could have done. The only option available to me. The only way…the only single way to save my friends. The Titans. The only way to earn their trust.

The key…the circumnavigation of death and the Experiment itself.

The final shove to tip the Full Circle off the cliff and break it into tiny, helpless pieces. Like dust in the grave.

I bit my lip as that familiar chill ran over my body. The same chill that splashes across your heart when you realize some horrid truth that you've known all along but push off for the sake of an irrational fear that even you yourself can see through.

That very same, frozen terror gripped my heart. But something inside me gripped it back. It wasn't so much that I was selfless, but rather that I was desperate.

I knew that if I headed west…I would be absorbed into my own Hell. Without friends.

But the Titans…and the bleakness and hopelessness of their salvation…that spelled sparks of awkward hope for me.

My breath shuddered painfully.

My right hand shook.

My fingers were numb as I reached back.

The emptiness in my throat constricted as I felt the hilt…gripped it…and pulled.

CHHHHHHIIIIIIIIINGGGGG!!!!

The unsheathing of Myrkblade echoed throughout the walls of the alleyway where everything was dark and naked and screaming up at relentless rain to stop without hope of an answered prayer.

I was hyperventilating by that point. Myrkblade shook in my grasp. I felt I could drop it….I wanted to drop it.

My black eyes twitched. I sweated profusely. The loose shirt whipped around my torso. Useless. Everything was useless.

I used that as an impulse to push my hesitancy over the cliff and be done with it.

But I couldn't.

I was sobbing.

I was hyperventilating.

I couldn't go through with it…I couldn't go that far.

I loved the Titans but I loved my own life and I loved my wholeness.

But I was anything but whole.

I was staring west into black oblivion and starting all over again.

Bouncing back and forth against the alleyway walls with each hyperventilating shake of my chilled body.

Everything shook to numbness and in some selfish fashion, the better part of me begged for the weather and coldness to take control of me and make me faint.

But nothing of the sort happened.

I was still painfully holding Myrkblade out in a shaking grasp. The shirt was still useless. I was still hyperventilating.

My black eyes teared. I sniffed amidst my weakness and stared straight into the oblivion of the alley wall and the West beyond it.

There was a flicker of yellow and green.

My lips parted.

She stepped gently towards me. One sandaled foot in front of the other. Her hands folded softly behind her green vest. Her blue eyes gently lowered and her blonde hair impervious to the rain.

I shuddered.

My breath shuddered between pants.

"What's wrong, Jordan?" she asked in her angelic voice.

I shook. I shivered.

Myrkblade rose and fell.

'I'm sc-scared, Ana……I d-don't know what to do……'

"You know very well what to do, Jordan," she blinked, staring firmly at me. "Why don't you tell me the truth? I already know what it is……"

I flinched.

My eyes squeezed shut.

My teeth gritted.

'I'm……I'm scared to do it. I don't want to do it. Please don't make me do it, Ana……'

"What is at stake here, Jordan?"

'I………I-I can't do it!!'

"What is at stake here?"

'…………the……th-the Titans……'

"Do you love them, Jordan?"

'Y-Yes……they are my friends……'

"Do they love you?"

'………………'

Ana slowly knelt down beside me and placed a gentle hand on my shaking, soaked shoulders. "Did they……ever once loved you, Jordan?"

I blinked.

I shivered.

'Yes……they did……'

She leaned her angel-soft hair against my shoulder and stroked a hand lovingly across my injured chest. "Remember how I once loved you, Jordan?"

I slowly nodded. I bit my lip.

"……and I never stopped, Jordan. I never stopped……"

The tears rolled down freely from my black eyes. And they warmed me. And the shivering lessened as I imagined her arms there…around me…like they always were in my mind.

"I believe the Titans never stopped loving you either, Jordan…," Ana smiled softly. "Even when they most distrusted you. They distrusted you because they love you……"

I clenched my eyes shut.

I nodded into the night.

Somewhere in the alleyway, a hand gripped tightly to the hilt of a wooden sword…and lifted it overhead.

"Then you must know…as I do, Jordan……," Ana said solemnly, stroking me to tranquility. "That there is no sacrifice…no sacrifice at all too little……"

There was a slight rush of air as the sword twirled in the air.

I lay beneath it.

Falling asleep almost…

Except for a shudder or two that betrayed the fact that I was more awake than I had ever been.

'Will I ever be the same, Ana?' I asked her, scared. 'Will I live, for that matter?'

Ana stroked the wet hair out from my face, leaned in, and shared her tears with mine. "When were you ever alive, Jordan? When were you ever alive??"

Somehow, I nodded. And somehow, I sighed.

And somehow…I didn't move at all as the mysterious hand twirled Myrkblade to a stop, blurred, and brought the whole weight of the sword down straight in a single blink.

THWACK!!!!!!!!

And for once I was glad that I wasn't able to scream….

-T-T-T-T-T-T-

The Titans winced, shook, shuddered, and gasped as the latest wave of pain and nausea momentarily left them. They panted for breath…slumped back in their chairs. And not once did they experience relief. The ache and torture wracked their bodies endlessly from start to finish of each wave and mid-wave interval.

Slade paced before them, his boots clamping coldly against the floor.

Jinx sat on his throne in the background, hugging her knees, in contemplation.

"What does it mean to shift the Balance of Morals??" the masked terrorist rambled aloud. "It means to shred a hole through this virgin world and show it that innocence—a mere 'word' and nothing more—died a long, long time ago. The darkness hidden within the seams of this reality's construct will burst free from their holdings, because the supports of Goodness will falter as every hero who hears of the Titans' defeat shivers in fear and expects the total collapse of all things perceivably orderly. The universe is like a giant dystopia waiting to discover its own, grubby hands of guilt and uncleanliness. All that's needed is the right shove. And thankfully I had the devices necessary to accomplish that provocation. You, my dear Titans, are of little concern to me anymore as egos or identities. I no longer desire your torture. I don't even want to know the secret identities of a scant few of you anymore!"

"Then…wh-why keep us here?!?" Beast Boy wheezed.

"Because you must play the role in the power shift…," Slade's emblazoned eye narrowed. "You are chess pieces. Not adversaries. I no longer see you as things I must taunt, but rather elements I must apply in the grand scheme of Destiny's upheaval. Call it a maturation on my part. Even villains must learn to grow."

"Is Jinx part of th-this cold equation too?!" Robin grunted, sweating. "D-D-Do you not care for her any?!"

"Naturally I do," Slade glared. "She is my apprentice!"

"But how does caring for an apprentice fit in with the upheaval of destiny?" Robin asked. "Did you not just say that—"

-click-

"AAAAAUGHHH!!!" Robin yelled as pain ripped up through his bowels and tore a path into his central cavity—as such the nanoprobes simulated.

Slade's emblazoned eye narrowed on the Boy Wonder's twitching figure. "Enough of that…Robin. Enough of that."

"Stop it!!!" Starfire shrieked amidst her own wave of pain. "Stop hurting him!! He is only trying to p-preserve the courage of all of us!!"

"My dear child….," Slade turned to face the tortured Tamaranian. "There is not a soul left in this room any worthy of preservation. So I suggest you keep your lips sealed from now on, or you will be the first to perish."

"I would gladly volunteer for death….," Starfire frowned with a green tear or two streaking, "…if it would mean the life of Robin!"

"St-Star!!" Robin murmured amidst his pain.

Beast Boy panted.

Cyborg bit his lip.

Raven lowered her eyes.

Slade fingered the buttons of his remote…facing the glaring Tamaranian.

Jinx stared at everyone and everything from where she hugged her knees. She took a shuddering breath. The locket suddenly felt heavy around her neck.

Starfire sniffed, but kept staring hard at Slade…not bothering to shake as wave after wave of nanoprobe torture shot through her system.

Slade's helmet tilted. "So be it."

Robin gasped.

Slade's finger went for the button.

Jinx craned to see---

BEEP! BEEP! BEEP! BEEP!

Slade was interrupted from cutting Starfire off. He turned and faced a t.v. screen blinking to life against the black wall.

Jinx hopped girlishly down from the throne and watched—lips parting—at the security image from the deck of the frigate.

Draped in a flapping, tattered 'cape' of sorts…the unmistakable figure of Noir climbed up onto the side of the boat, unsheathed Myrkblade, and crept down the deck.

Starfire gasped.

"Noir!!" Beast Boy blurted.

"N-No….," Cyborg whispered…..swallowed a wave of pain…and wheezed: "Go back…g-get out of here…."

Raven didn't open her eyes, but her lips quivered.

Robin glared through his sweating eyemask.

"Well well…," Slade folded his hands behind his back. "The stupid do walk among us…"

Jinx sweat. She looked up at her Master for a command.

He gave none. He stared at the video image.

He absent-mindedly tapped the cylindrical remote in his other pocket…..

-T-T-T-T-T-T-

I shuffled one foot forward. I shuffled another one forward.

I wobbled to a stand still….blinking dizzily…but then recovering with my head tilted forward as a throng of robot henchmen leapt down to the main deck to meet me in a standoff.

I had tied Dagger's tattered, stained shirt around my neck like a cape. Its light-colored cloth—wet and crinkled—hung down low over my torso and clung to my chest and arms and back. Two sleeves billowed around my neck where the article had been tied like a shawl. My right hand stretched out from underneath…gripping Myrkblade as I stared down at the deck. The wind of the Atlantic Ocean kicked at my long black hair.

The androids gathered around me. More and more. Over two dozen. Many with laser rifles. Aiming. Glaring. Circling.

Seconds passed. More seconds. Half a minute.

They all closed in on me…and then froze.

Wind kicked my hair up and toyed with my 'cape'. I tilted my head up. My black eyes were scrunched into a burning frown under a furrowed brow. In a split second, the black almost seemed to flash white as---WOOOOOOSH!!!!! I suddenly blurred forward.

ZAAP!!!

ZAAP!!!!!!

ZAAP!!!!!

Lasers shot at me from different angles.

I dodged and streaked through them. Gripping Myrkblade with my right hand, my body leapt and spiraled around in a horizontal slash that lopped off three robot heads at once. I ran past the torsos, up a wall, and flipped off it—my stained 'cape' billowing.

More lasers followed me in vain as I flew back from my arc, landed in the center of a throng of androids, and spun like a top with my swinging Myrkblade.

SLASH-SLASH-SLASH-SLASH!!!

At the end of my swing, robot limbs and heads littered the deck at my feet as I jumped forward, crouched, and jabbed straight through two henchmen at once. I wrenched and twisted Myrkblade with the fingers of my right hand and—with a flick of the wrist—shredded them apart before charging at the next enemy in line.

-T-T-T-T-T-T-

"N-Noir…..," Starfire shuddered.

"He's gotta get off this ship!!" Cyborg panted. "H-He'll die if he comes near!!"

"Rae!!" Beast Boy squealed. "U-Use your powers or something!! Can't you warn him somehow?!"

"I…..can't….," she groaned. "I'm just as….helpless….as the rest of you!!"

Robin grunted and struggled in his chair, but the waves of torturous pain only increased.

"I'll spare you the agony this time…," Slade said, noticing the Boy Wonder's resistance. "I'll let you all be conscious enough to watch your 'traitor' die before your eyes. It'll erase whatever, scant remaining shreds of respect you have left for the poor fool…"

Raven panted and sweated as she watched the security camera feed from afar…

The other Titans inadvertently joined her viewing…

-T-T-T-T-T-

SLASH!!!!!

An android sparked as it was sliced vertically up the middle and split into two halves clattering to the deck floor.

I made a bee-line towards the center cabin of the boat. As I blurred along, the white shirt flapped against my back and billowed against the wind. I slashed through every android that I passed, lopping off an arm or a leg or a head as I then dragged Myrkblade beside me in my right hand and let sparks fly in a trail behind my heels.

I approached a throng of guards in front of a hatch. They formed a last line of defense, guns raised and everything.

I gritted my teeth. A mysterious whiteness danced across my black eyes as I jumped an onslaught of lasers, spun in mid-air, and came down with a downward slash of my blade.

SWIIIIISH!!!!

Two robots were shredded in half.

I ducked the punch of a third, jump kicked his skull off, dodged the laser blast of a fourth, stabbed it deep in the electronic gut, and spiraled Myrkblade back and into a twirl just in time to deflect the oncoming rush of a fist-swinging Robot whose torso I eagerly shredded into thin, corkscrew strips of metal.

SLASSSSSH!!!

CLUNK!!!

The last limb of Slade's robots fell to the ground.

I took a deep breath…my black hair waving and my naked eyes glaring.

I turned—gripping Myrkblade—and marched towards the hatch to the cabin---

"RRRAAAAUGHHH!!!!"

SWOOOOOSH-STOMP!!!!

I backflipped and slid to a stop, gritting my teeth and glaring at Cinderblock who had just leapt down from a higher tier.

The monster raised two stone fists, growled, and charged at me.

My face tensed. My eyes twitched—white—and black again.

SWOOOOOSH!!! CLANK!!!

I struck hard across Cinderblock's chest, shoving him back.

-T-T-T-T-T-T-

Jinx panted, watching the screen. She looked towards the hatch door—at the t.v. screen—and back at the door again.

"I gotta get out there!!" she exclaimed, her fingers glowing a desperate pink. "N-Noir's not his normal self!! He's all super badass now for some reason!! I-I'm scared Cinderblock won't stand a chance."

"Stay here….," Slade throated.

"But….B-B-But!!"

"Stay……here…..," the masked terrorist commanded again.

Jinx frowned. Her clenched fists shook. "What….wh-what do you know?!?!" the Third Apprentice shouted frustratingly at her Master. "You've not fought Noir one on one!! Every day that you've sat in this damn boat and given me orders over the communicator, I've been the one to get my ass handed over on a plate by that Ghost time in and time out!! I know him more than you—and even any of those brats in those chairs over there!! What do you know, Slade?! We might all go under thanks to you!!"

A wyrd sound erupted through the confines of the dark cabin. It shook the hearts of the Titans more than any torturous device could. It positively made Jinx gasped as she stepped back and eyed her Master with throbbing cat eyes.

It was the sound of Slade laughing.

"Foolish….little….witch….," Slade slowly turned and leered over the pink sorceress. "I certainly know a lot. A lot more than you'll ever comprehend."

Jinx pouted. She spat above the chaotic noise of the fight going on out on the deck: "I don't care!! All this time you've been making me do all your dirty work!! Not once did you show me how much you appreciated it!! Sure, you always said 'good job' and 'I'm proud of you'…but that doesn't make me stop hurting, ya know?!?! And just how far along are you in finding my sisters, huh Slade?! How far are you?!"

"My dear child…," Slade calmly spoke, "…what sisters are you referring to?"

Jinx gasped. Her eyes turned round…confused…shocked. "What…..?!?!"

The Titans watched and listened wearily.

Slade's emblazoned eye narrowed. "Of course you know, Apprentice, you are an only child."

Jinx's breath left her. Her lips started to quiver.

-T-T-T-T-T-T-

"RAAAUGH!!!" Cinderblock charged and struck a fist down at me.

SMACK!!!!

The deck splashed in an upside down shower of splinters.

I leapt the blow, flipped, and perched on Cinderblock's forearm. With Mykblade outstretched in my right hand, I ran up his shoulder and trailed the tip of the sword up his stone skin. Sparks flew and a tiny crack formed just seconds before I reached his cranium and gave his skull a firm blow with the center of my blade.

WHACK!!!

"RAAARGHH!!"

He grabbed for me.

I effortlessly leapt up from his grasp, flipped, and streaked down his back with another slice of my sword.

More sparks flew. More cracks and chips of pebbly debris.

Cinderblock let out a howl of pain and frustration and kicked in reverse.

WHUMP!!

I was sent flying back, but I effortlessly landed on my feet, twirled Myrkblade in my right hand, and charged at his rear.

He turned around at the last second.

STAB!!!!!

I stuck Myrkblade a good three inches into his granite chest.

CHUNK!!!

"RAAAUGH!!!"

He warbled and fumbled frantically to loosen the blade.

But my black eyes danced with trailing black smoke as I sent wave after wave of murk into his granite guts through my sword.

Cinderblock's head tilted back and he….it screamed.

-T-T-T-T-T-T-

"Wh-What are you talking about?!" Jinx shook her fists. "Stop toying with me!! You know nothing about my life before H.I.V.E.!! Or my sisters!!"

"You mean Faye and Fiona?" Slade's helmet tilted. "Such adorable little twins. Loved to play with sandcastles, if I'm not mistaken."

Jinx gasped. She snarled and shook. "How DARE you say their real names out loud?!?! Nobody says their real names out loud but ME!!"

"A rather selfish demand of yours, I must admit…," Slade said. "Considering we chose the names ourselves."

Jinx's mouth dropped. "You…..You….Wh-What???"

"The first time I ever partnered with Dagger…," Slade spoke, "…we heard of H.I.V.E.'s acquisition, and we learned of you. You were a girl with much potential, Jinx. The power to bend reality itself. It was a power Dagger and I desired. I managed to claim you first…but I employed Dagger's talents. He sent his neurosurgeons in to infiltrate H.I.V.E.'s high-security orphanages. When they kidnapped you from your holding cell, you were still new and fresh to the experience of organized crime and forced training in the deadly arts. It took Dagger's men very little time to…..program your memories as I saw fit. I knew that if I was to use you to bring everything Full Circle and manifest the Experiment…I had to give you a motive strong enough so that you would break yourself free of H.I.V.E. and fall under my wing. So I suggested we 'invent' two little sisters in your past. Twins. Innocent little things that you in your girlish habits would fall for immediately. The brainwashing succeeded. Dagger even digitally rendered the photograph you have in your locket to resemble the imagery implanted in your false memories. You were our property, Jinx. We bought you out from H.I.V.E. a long time ago. Until just months ago, you were on 'layaway'…to put it lightly. When Dagger arranged for the Khazza Jewell to be present at Westhaven during H.I.V.E.'s operation there…we both knew you would jump on the opportunity to free yourself of H.I.V.E.'s tracking and go out on a lonesome quest to find two despicable siblings who don't even exist. And at the precise moment, I as there to embrace you and promise you all the false solutions your equally false dreams wanted to acquire. You fell into it, you earned my trust, and you became my Apprentice. But you were my Third Apprentice way back in the start, Jinx. Even before I ever first spoke to Robin or commiserated with Terra…you were the One to bring the Balance of Morals down on its side. You've been the apex of our programming. And you've served your purpose well. And now…I need you no more."

Silence.

The Titans panted.

Jinx's blinked. She shook her head. "No….N-NO!! It's not true!! It's not true!! My sisters are real!! I remember everything!! Like---"

"—the way they always called you 'J.J.' when they were happy or scared?" Slade remarked with a gesture. "Or the game of 'sailboat' you used to play with them while helping them in the bath? Or how about the gentle smell of lilacs in their hair as you hugged them before tucking them in their beds to sleep? Do you remember the nightlight Faye and Fiona loved so much? The one they couldn't sleep without? The Cheshire Cat from Alice In Wonderland. It would cast a huge, purple silhouette of cartoonish hue on the far wall of the bedroom where your bed lie and from where you could hear them snore into the softness of the night. And in the middle of their dreams, they would call out—"

"'We love you….J.J……'," Jinx uttered. A stray tear fell down her pink-shaded face. "'See you when we wake up…'" She blinked into nothingness.

"Figments of your imagination….foolish witch….," Slade hissed. "Absolute figments…."

-T-T-T-T-T-T-

I came down from a spiral, spinning Myrkblade.

CL-CL-CL-CL-CLANK!!!!

Cinderblock's head jolted repeatedly from the rapid strike of my descending sword.

I landed beside him, 'cape' billowing', and slashed at his feet.

SMACK!!!

He fell back, grunting and stumbling. He swung down at me. "RAUGGGH!!"

SMASH!!

More splinters of the deck flew. I jumped backwards, planted my feet into the railing, took a breath, and blurred forward.

Cinderblock flexed his muscles.

I soared at him.

He raised his fists.

I charged smoke into my blade.

He stomped towards me.

My black eyes twitched white and back to obsidian as I let out a silent howl, swung my right arm up, and a warbling Myrkblade in tow.

SWOOOOOOOOOSH---SLASH!!!!

I screeched to a stop, Myrkblade extended upwards at the frozen end of a swinging arc.

I blinked.

I had literally just dived throughCinderblock. As I squatted on the other side, the granite monster stood still.

Two seconds passed…

CLUNK!! CLANK!! THONK!!!

Cinderblock's head fell to the ground….then his shoulders…then his forearms.

The creature disintegrated into pure rubble. Whatever soul may have been housed inside his rock-hard shell was now gone.

I stood up, took a deep breath, and marched towards the hatch.

It occurred to me once that I may have just ended the life of a sentient being.

I didn't care….

-T-T-T-T-T-T-

"Your purpose in my plans is over, Jinx…," Slade said firmly, his hands folded calmly behind his back. "It was over to begin with. Though, understand that I am nonetheless grateful for your participation in my endeavors…"

Jinx's eyes suddenly glowed a bright pink of hatred and seething anger. She pointed two hex-charged hands of pink at Slade and snarled. "Not so fast…you bastard of a tin can!!"

Robin watched—sweating—through narrowed eyemasks of pain.

Cyborg and Beast Boy panted.

Raven and Starfire breathed slowly.

"I don't know what's true or not true anymore….," Jinx said, on the brink of madness. "But one thing is for certain. I shall forever rue the day I called you Master. I think from now on….I'll be calling you 'six feet in the ground'!!"

"Tsk tsk tsk…," Slade uttered. "So brash. So quick to avenge an ego you never possessed to begin with!" His eye narrowed and he leaned forward. "True, Jinx. Your power is the only real thing that you have. And it was a power so real—Dagger and I had to have it for ourselves. But tell me….how can a superpower—no matter how real—react to the all encompassing force of a bullet at close range?"

SWOOOSH—Slade whipped out a revolver from his side and—click-BANG!!!!!!!!!!!

Jinx's cat eyes bulged.

The Titans' eyes widened.

Slowly, the witch's arms fell down and dangled by her side.

Slade continued aiming the smoking barrel at where it had fired—directly into the girl's chest.

Jinx's eyes thinned into tiny crescents. There wasn't even a breath to exhale as she slumped forward on her knees and flattened out onto the ground and lay silent.

Slade shouldered his gun, lowered his gaze, and spoke to the petite corpse:

"Yes, Jinx. You and Noir are both the same, Third Apprentice in that you are both dead."

CRASH!!!!

Slade calmly looked up.

The Titans gasped and writhed.

I emerged through the hole I had slashed through the hatch-door.

I stepped through the frame, clutching Myrkblade in my right hand. The shirt draped and clinging to my upper body. My black eyes frowning….squinting firmly and in resolve.

"And alas….," Slade droned, "…the holocaust is now complete."

"Noir!! Get out of here!!" Cyborg shouted, shaking as a wave of pain hit him.

"P-Please….do not come a-any closer!!" Starfire added.

"He'll kill you…," Raven grunted. "He'll kill you in an instant!!"

"He's got a switch thing!! Get out of here, Noir!!" Beast Boy writhed.

I ignored them.

I marched forward.

Frowning.

The shirt billowing from the sea air gusting through the hatch's frame.

My hair dancing.

Everything shaking and collapsing and running full circle.

Full Circle……

"Noir!!" Robin shouted. "Get out of here!! Please!!"

"We don't want you to die!!"

"Go!! Now!!"

I stepped all the way towards Slade.

I gripped Myrkblade hard with my fingers. I dragged it threateningly along the floor of the dark cabin. It scraped annoyingly against the metal.

"You should listen to them…," Slade managed. He fingered the cylindrical remote in belt side pocket. "But you are the fool that you are. I suppose there is no danger real enough to teach you that the Titans are beyond your grasp. You tried to save them by being honest…you tried to save them by hurting them. In the end…they didn't love you. They betrayed you, Noir. Allow me to put you out of your misery."

Slade whipped out the cylinder and held his finger over the trigger.

I came to a standstill.

I stared up at him.

So close…we could breathe in each other's exhalations.

The Titans watched with lumps in their throats and mouths agape.

"You bluffed out, Wyldecarde….," Slade hissed. "And Fate holds for me alone the winning deck."

He firmly brought his thumb down over the trigger.

-click-

……

……

……

……nothing happened.

Slade's eye narrowed. "Wh-What????"

He jammed his thumb over the trigger some more.

-click- -click- -click-

"How…..H-How…..?!" he panted.

I glared up at him.

I shifted my body and the front of Dagger's shirt hanging over me came loose, revealing my left arm. There was a bloody stub of a bandage where my wrist and hand used to be. Where I had hacked it and the computer chip off and away from my body in a dark alleyway two and a half hours ago.

The Titans gasped loudly. Many a set of bug-eyes stared in my direction.

And Slade's eye exploded in similar fashion. His shaking hand dropped the cylinder. He took a step back.

I gritted my teeth. With my one remaining hands, I sent an impregnable wave of murk through my blade and slashed it out and upwards.

SWOOOOOOOSH!!!!!!

Metal and blood flew diagonally up Slade's chest in a spray.

"AAAUGH!!!" he shouted through his mask and stepped back.

I jumped and lunged at him. Myrkblade skewered through his side and fountained crimson out the other side.

SLIIIINK!!!

Slade's body jerked upwards.

I exhaled and yanked my sword back…ripping skin out from inside the exoskeleton of his suit in the sword's exit. He leaked madly and twirled over against a wall…gripping hard to the blank t.v. monitors in panting desperation. I spun towards him, and slashed Myrkblade at his upper limbs.

CHOP!!!!

"AAAUGH!!" Slade shrieked as three of his fingers were ripped off and pinned somewhere inside the smashed screens. He clutched his missing digits and stumbled across the cabin.

I came at him—regardless of his pain—fuming.

Limbs are overrated…

SLASH!!!!!

I sliced deep into his shoulder. He yanked out, blood spraying outward. He panted and wheezed and backed up to the window. He shook and shivered and looked up at me.

My left-armed stub flailed as I charged at him, let out a silent scream, and stabbed outward and downward with the full length of Myrkblade.

SLLLLLLIIIIIIIIIINK!!!!!!!

I drove Myrkblade into Slade…to the hilt. The wooden curve of the blade easily drove out the back of his body. He lurched forward on the object skewering him and convulsed. The opening to his mask was just besides my right ear as he hacked and crimson saliva oozed heavily out from his breathing vent.

"Snkkkkkk…..y-you are a ffffffool, Noir. Hckkkk!!…O-Only fools tear themselvessssss up for friends. Only f-fools……….," and his breath faded.

I inhaled, charged murk, and pulled back.

SLASH!!!!

After yanking my sword out and spinning around, a fountain of spurting red sprayed from the hole in Slade's metal costume and drenched my right side in rusted blood. His lifeless body teetered back, smashed through the circular window, and plunged into the waters of the Atlantic…only to be churned into obscurity and lost in the bubbles of turbulent water beneath the bow of the ship ahead of us.

I panted.

I looked across the way at the five tortured Titans in their seats.

So close….so far away…

CLANK!!!

I dropped Myrkblade.

I teetered towards them…limping…swaying from side to side….dizzy with the pain that I had denied myself to acknowledge since the very minute I summoned the courage to chop my left forearm off and rid Slade of his wildcard to kill me and make the Titans his forever.

I was limping towards the computer to shut down the nanoprobes. To end this all. To stop the experiment.

I didn't think I could make it.

"J-Just a little further, Noir!!"

"You can do it!"

"Concentrate!! Concentrate!!"

"We b-believe in you!!"

I lunged forward. I fell to my knees. I gasped. I felt fingers that weren't there. I wanted to cry. I wanted to sleep in a pillow of soft blood loss and call it a life. I lurched forward, right hand outstretched, and hit the controls at the last second.

CLUNK!!!

The chairs unloaded The sparks died out.

The five Titans gasped and sighed as the pain finally…finally stopped.

They stood up, aching and catching their breaths.

Cyborg immediately ran over to my side.

"Noir!! Noir!!"

"Dude!!" Beast Boy exclaimed. "What the hell did he do to himself?!"

"What does it look like?!?!" Cyborg glared. He ran a reading of my battered body using his arm controls and sensors. His human eye rounded. "Oh man….not good. Dammit!! How far from shore are we??"

"I can take him to the Tower!" Starfire volunteered. "The facilities there would be adequate in giving him aid, no?"

"I think we have other problems to attend to…," Raven uttered.

"Huh??" Beast Boy blinked. He gasped as he realized that the computer console besides the chair was humming loudly and glowing red.

In fact…all the computer consoles were glowing red.

The whole boat was vibrating…on the verge of blowing its top.

"Rrrrghh!!" Robin fisted his palm. "Slade's set this whole damn thing to blow!! Even when he's been finished off like that, he's still making our life a living Hell!!"

"Um…I like to worry about an afterlife of an eternal flame as much as the rest of you guys…but…," Beast Boy blinked. "WE NEED TO GET OUT OF HERE!!!"

"There's no time…," Raven gritted her teeth. "This thing will blow any second!"

Cyborg sweat. "Man, what'll we do?!?!"

FLASH!!!!

A pink hex burst from out of nowhere and struck the computer consoles.

Beast Boy gasped.

Raven squinted her eyes.

Slowly…the consoles stopped glowing red. The pink aura took over…canceling out the self-destruct sequence. Soon, Slade's frigate cooled down…and the looming threat was over.

Robin spun around. He gasped and ran over to Jinx's side and knelt down.

The petite sorceress was stirring.

"She is alive!!" Starfire floated over.

Robin cradled the girl's pink head in his lap. "Easy there…don't try and move."

"Nnngh…the sh-ship…," Jinx wheezed. "It won't explode now…."

"Dude….how did she survive a bullet to the chest??" Beast Boy scratched his head.

Jinx's cat eyes slowly opened. She looked weakly up at Robin. She blinked. She looked at the others. She slowly reached into her costume and pulled out the locket. A steaming bullet was lodged halfway through the heart-shaped container of her 'sisters'' faces. She took a deep breath as the corners of her eyes welled up with tears.

"The locket….," Starfire gasped, a hand over her lips as she cradled Jinx's keepsake in the other. "It stopped the bullet!"

"That's insane!!" Beast Boy muttered.

Jinx's shook her head. She muttered: "It's luck….."

Robin's eyemask narrowed. "Thank you for stopping the ship from blowing us all out of the water…," he deigned to say.

Jinx curled into a fetal position and hid her face in Robin's thigh. "Just….J-Just get me into prison already. I-I-I don't want to talk to or listen to anyone…p-please….."

The sorceress sobbed.

The Titans were silent.

They huddled for a bit, discussed a plan of action, and soon Starfire carried my body away with Raven and Beast Boy flying after and towards the distant coastline. Robin and Cyborg remained behind on the ship to safely navigate it until the Coast Guard came along and they could cart Jinx off to prison.

-T-T-T-T-T-T-

"Last night, soon following the celebratory events of July Fourth, the Teen Titans were captured by Slade and were taken hostage on board an unmarked sea cruiser in the Atlantic Ocean, upon which the heroes of the City were reportedly tortured for reasons unexplained. There is no reported, permanent damages to their persons—however in a startling development, former Titan Wyldecarde made an appearance and attacked Slade viciously before personally freeing the Titans from their predicament. Reports are still coming in, but it's rumored that both Wyldecarde and Slade were wounded heavily in the fight. The details of such are unclear, but right now Wyldecarde is residing within the infirmary of the Titans' Tower and Slade's body was nowhere to be found after the coast guard arrived on the scene.

"Robin, the Boy Wonder himself, responded to a few questions after his brief conversation with Commissioner Decker at the Police Department last night. Robin is reported as saying that the incident at the Independence Fireworks Show and the explosion of a petroleum semi truck and a business high rise were all more-or-less related to the defeat of Slade and his mysterious ally 'Dagger', a name that circles about in conspiracy theories and could provide startling developments in the prospect of the said 'Dagger's' death. More on this as the story develops.

"Robin did—however—assure the public during an interview that Slade's terrorism—at least for now—has been put largely to rest. The Titans insist that the bomb threats are to happen not only less frequently but not at all. It would appear—according to them—that Slade's forces have been dealt with officially, and oddly enough Jinx, former member of the elusive H.I.V.E. corporation has been brought into custody and is now facing the possibility of a life's sentence in the penitentiary.

"As to the fate of Wyldecarde, not many questions have been answered, but the general consensus is that a great deal of information regarding Noir's villainy is up to reevaluation now that more and more aspects of Slade's schemes are being uncovered and revealed to the people of law enforcement and the city. Hopefully by the end of tomorrow, a Titan or two will have been dragged to another press conference and more information will have been revealed thusly."

-T-T-T-T-T-T-

When my black eyes opened, there was a sleeping mask over my face and that was when I knew I was 'home'.

I sat up in bed and slipped the mask off with my right hand. Bright lights stabbed my black eyes. I blinked and realized that I was in the infirmary. I was draped in a hospital gown with a few wires plugged into my being.

I looked across the barren room….down…and at my left side.

A cast of sorts—shrouded with bandages—was covering the stub. I could feel the effect of a multitude of drugs and their after effects on what would have been an infected limb otherwise for sure.

In a haunting move, I reached my right hand over and magically 'clutched' an invisible wrist where flesh used to extend down past the half-severed forearm.

But there was nothing. I heard stories of amputees who could still feel their fingers after they were gone. I got the chills.

I looked up to my left side and froze.

There was a mirror. And in that mirror, I saw my reflection for the first time in well over a week and a half. I had scrapes and scratches and stitches and bruises all over me. I was thin…pale….emaciated. Like an ascetic who hadn't eaten in days.

I kicked some covers off and swung my legs over to the side…watching the mirror wall and realizing how small I seemed to be suddenly. Small and frail. Limbless on one half of me.

I took a deep breath. I didn't want to be this shrill thing. I didn't want to be a half-ling…a broken down ghost.

And slowly…the realization swam to me….

That I was in the Tower. That I was dressed, cleaned, and sitting softly on the edge of a hospital bed in the infirmary.

And the last things I remembered previous were loving voices cheering me on somewhere… Cheering me on. I smiled slightly.

"So….tell me, Titan….."

Startled, I glanced quickly to the side.

My black eyes rounded as I spot the Messenger standing in the doorway. He folded his arms and leaned casually against the frame. His face was presently deadpan as he looked me over from across the way with Asian eyes and said: "What is the sound of one hand clapping?"

I blinked.

I looked hesitantly down at my severed left hand…then at my whole right hand.

I slowly looked back up at him…a crooked smile on his face.

The Messenger breathed softly as he said: "You very well know the answer to that…don't you?"

My lips parted.

Slowly….like melting ice…the Messenger smiled. But it was not his goofy grin. It was a breathless smile. One that sang of pride all over. And that pride shined through his brown eyes and across his smooth skin and out from his curved lips in some unfiltered aura of admiration and respect and honor.

And everything inside of me snapped. The cords of dichotomy fell away. There was no such thing as pain and there was no such thing as suffering. The stupid koan faded into the back of my mind like white noise and I drifted through the horizon of my soul, ripping a hole through and hopping onto the other side of the mirror to realize that there was no reflection. There was no self and the self was none. I was the half of a much, much greater whole. And that wholeness was never complete without a sort of spiritual glue forged by patience and perseverance and the ever-so-ridiculous quest to cling to one virtue and one virtue alone in a blind faith that everything that is everything will bend under the pressure of absolution and yield forth a break in the circle of lifelong tragedy.

It was a truth that—I'll be damned—the Messenger must not have known himself either.

That punk of an Oriental kid was staring at me across the way and suddenly the pride in his face turned out to be envy just as well as he admired every shape and contour of my left hand that I no longer had. I almost saw tears well up in his eyes.

I would have gestured 'thank you' if I had more than one set of fingers. And…yeah…that kinda sorta hurt….

And I'm glad it did hurt.

"You've climbed through more crap than a lifetime should allow…," the Messenger said with a sigh and a smirk. "And quite frankly, I'm pooped just watching you. I won't be seeing you for a while, Noir. Cuz I'm going on a vacation. And I suggest you take one as well."

I slowly nodded.

Suddenly, a throng of five footsteps and excited voices emanated from the hallway.

There was a glow of bright green. I did a double-take as the Messenger was suddenly gone. Through the doorframe, Robin and Cyborg and Beast Boy and Raven and Starfire emerged.

They were talking busily about explanations to give the city council and Commissioner Decker and what-not.

At one glance, they noticed I was awake…and they all froze.

Silence.

The five heroes stared at the ostracized. The ostracized stared at the five heroes.

The infirmary beeped and bleeped its sensors into hiding.

Slowly…I bore a crooked smile. An exhausted, crooked smile under rows of bruises and stitches.

The Titans took a deep breath.

Starfire was the first to say: "Hi!"

I waved my only hand.

They gulped. They wandered over…Robin first.

"Noir….," he said. A beat. "Jordan….," he corrected—making the others look at him wide-eyed. "We are……glad you're back…."

I nodded and looked down.

"L-Listen….Cyborg and I have been running some tests. And about your arm…we think we can do something to help out. We think we can……….." Robin's voice trailed off as he realized that words were useless at this point. Not that they would be useless forever…but just not right then. Not at that moment.

Every Titan's face was suddenly wounded and either looking down or looking away.

It was not something I enjoyed witnessing.

I quickly shuffled around on the medical bed and looked away. A sour lump formed in my throat as I clutched the bedsheet to my chest and sighed heavily.

Silence.

It was Beast Boy who did it first. I could tell…I could always tell. Even when I'm sitting down, his arms always wrap around so low against the rib cage.

Surprisingly, it was Raven who was second. I knew because she came to my side and wrapped her arms around my left shoulder…immediately hiding my missing limb with her cloak.

Starfire floated in from the front and squeezed me hard, her fair head of hair leaning over my shoulder.

Robin came in secretly on the right…and Cyborg encircled with his Titanium arms from the back.

I fought for a steady breath…I fought with all my strength not to cave in…but I soon realized that I had every need—and right—to do just that. So I did. And I did so sobbing. And I did so collapsing into wet tears against every soft arm I could come into contact with. All five Titans hugged me close…completing me with their fivefold limbs the humongous depths of me which had been so viciously lost unto myself. And I couldn't stop sobbing. Because it felt so right. And it felt so good. And we all rocked gently and slowly as one in some sway of ritualistic atonement. And I knew they didn't have to ask it of me or hug it from me to get me to forgive them. I forgave each and every one of them in the dark alley the very second the blade came down and I had won myself the ticket to rescue them from the hand of Fate itself.

I don't remember how long that went on. Twenty minutes…forty minutes. Heaven can't be measured.

At some point, I passed out. I felt soft and warm into the morning and the long and winded afternoons of the next few days to follow.

-T-T-T-T-T-T-

The night after I returned, Raven sauntered into her lonely, dark room. The window was dimly lit by sparse stars peering through latent thunderclouds hovering across the urban landscape.

The dark girl yawned, padded over towards her closet, and stripped off her robe.

After hanging the article, she made her way towards the shower—but stopped as her eye caught sight of a rectangular object on the floor.

As if she needed to remind herself what it was, she picked it up and carried it over to the windows. Her blue eyes squinted as the canvass of the mysterious painting she made was bathed in starlight.

The picture of a blonde-haired girl with a wooden katana and wearing a green vest smiled back at her. An image that was as soft and angelic as it was foreboding and mysterious.

A beat.

Raven actually smiled. She said: "Don't you worry. We're going to take very good care of him from now on. I promise."

There was a gentle reverence in the way Raven carried the painting to the closet, cleared an open area, and softly set it down. Hiding it in the darkness, Raven let the painting be. She closed the closet door, and prepared for a sound night's sleep.

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[End of Act One.]